


plot twist - i didn’t mean it

by sunflower_lwt



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Baker Harry, Cheating mention, House Party, Lirry - Freeform, Louis Tomlinson is a Little Shit, M/M, Miscommunication, Photographer Harry Styles, Post-Break Up, Rude Louis Tomlinson, Strangers to Lovers, alcohol mention, its only 3k ok, marijuana mention, ok what else - Freeform, secret larry valentine, sorta???, that tag fshjsgsv, ziam, zouis friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29752203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_lwt/pseuds/sunflower_lwt
Summary: Louis rants about shit sofas and bad music taste and rude hipsters at a house party. Harry is the host.Written for the Secret Larry Valentine exchange - February 2021
Relationships: Aiden Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	plot twist - i didn’t mean it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maggieisalarrie (ls2k14)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ls2k14/gifts).



> hi hi! i hope everyone’s doing good. i wrote this for the SLV fest, with a different twist on the prompt! i hope you like it, maggie. i’m not really happy with the ending but i hope you like it in any case lol. i had written a different one but i was unhappy with it and started this from scratch, which was mayhaps not a good idea because i have exams from tomorrow. (wish me luck). this is based on a prompt (at the start of the chapter) that i saw on pinterest and loved and had been wanting to write for a long time. i’ll stop now lol, enjoy! x

[this](https://pin.it/3aYuoKK) is the prompt. credits to the owner!

“Louis, for the last time, you. _Are_. Coming.” Zayn fixes Louis with a hard stare, standing in front of him and looking way more gorgeous than he has a right to be.

“I. Am. _Not_.” Louis punctuates each word just the way Zayn did, just as stubbornly. A saccharine sweet smile graces his lips. He crosses his arms where he’s sitting on the sofa. Zayn puts his hands on his hips, sighing, and Louis knows he’s winning. He lets his shoulders relax and dips on the sofa next to Louis, who closes his eyes and tries to prepare himself for the inevitable lecture he knows is coming.

“Lou,” Zayn starts gently, and _there_ it fucking is. Zayn hardly uses this tone with Louis. Maybe he’s not winning after all.

“Listen, I really didn’t want to talk about this, especially since you’ve been getting better lately, but you’ve hardly been out of the goddamn flat since you and Auden broke up. He was a prick and you deserve better than to waste time over him crying alone in your room no matter how much you want to pretend we can’t hear you.” Louis just stares straight ahead, letting his heart sink to his toes. He knows Zayn’s right, is the thing. He hasn’t been out of the house because everywhere he goes he’s reminded of Aiden, his Aiden, his Aiden who was apparently fucking every single person who’d have him behind Louis’ back. His Aiden who he’d been dating for three years. Who he was going to fucking propose to. If it hadn’t been for Louis going through his text messages - trying to look for the text from Forever 21 that offered a discount - he never would have found out.

Granted, it’s been more than a month now, but Louis has yet to make any progress. His ex definitely isn’t helping; he keeps texting him about how much he misses him. Louis wants to slap him.

Anyway. Back to Zayn. Who’s still staring at him. “Listen, this is just a tiny get-together,” Zayn insists. Louis knows that part of the reason Zayn is so insistent on Louis coming along is because the party is being hosted by Liam (his boyfriend of nearly six years) (and some friend of Liam) who he hasn’t seen in more than a week because he’s been busy fussing over Louis, despite his protests that he’s fine. Though Louis does feel guilty for keeping him from Liam, he’s not fine at all and is grateful for Zayn. 

He just wishes he were immune to Zayn’s puppy eyes. His life would be a whole less complicated then. “Please,” he whines. “This will be good for you. If you don’t like it, we can come back, I promise.” 

Eh. What more can go wrong? It’s just a stupid get-together. 

Louis sighs. “Alright.”

He hopes he won’t regret it.

****

As it turns out, he does not in fact regret it. The party (“get-together, Louis!”) is decent enough that he doesn’t feel like leaving the moment he enters. Whoever owns the house must like photography , judging by all the black and white picture frames plastered on the walls. As they walk in - with Zayn constantly reassuring Louis that they can leave the moment he wants to - Louis sees a lot of cupcakes in everyone’s hands. No one seems to be drinking hard alcohol, which is _fine_ , honestly, Louis couldn’t care less. Except he does. Except he also knows that if he drinks anymore his liver is going to rot soon. 

Zayn does not, in fact, stick by Louis’ side like he had promised he would. He leaves Louis beside a coffee table after about ten minutes, promising to be back within ten minutes, _I just have to see Liam, it’ll be quick, pinky promise_. 

Louis stands there awkwardly for at least fifteen minutes , clutching his beer in his stupid sweaty hand before he can’t take it anymore. He decides he’ll look for cupcakes in the meantime. He’s just about to wriggle out of the corner when he spots a man walking toward him, confidence evident in every step.

The first thing Louis thinks is _wide chest long eyes green legs must run._

Before he realises he’s wrong and also very very right and that he really needs to run because he’s fucked. The guy comes up to stand in front of Louis, hands in his pockets, and seriously how do they even fit there? His black jeans look like they’ve been painted on him. He smiles, a small-barely there smile, but it’s enough to make Louis’ stomach tingle. It might be the dimples but who’s to say. He sees brown curls peeking out from behind an ear, that are then pushed behind with hands like Hagrid’s.

“You must be Louis,” the guy says after about 30 seconds of them staring at each other in silence and shit, his voice is deeper than Louis expected. The guy sticks out his Hagrid-hands for Louis to shake, and Louis takes it. He studies their hands linked, and decides he likes it, likes the way his delicate fingers fit between Hagrid’s giant ring-studded ones. Their hands stay like that for a beat longer than necessary, and when Louis withdraws his hand there’s a tingle spreading through his body. He couldn’t suppress it if he tried, so he doesn’t.

“Wait, how do you know my name?” He squints, racking his brain to remember if he’s ever met this man before. He’s sure he hasn’t, because if he had there’s no way he would forget him.

“‘m Harry, Zayn’s mentioned you,” the guy- Harry rasps. Louis nods, mulling over the name in his head. “Harry,” he mutters, testing it out. He likes the way it rolls off of his tongue. “That’s a nice name.”

“Thanks,” Harry smiles, and he can see those dimples again and he might or might not be a little bit in love with those dimples. Only the dimples, yeah, nothing else.

“So how are you enjoying the party?” Harry asks, handing Louis a red beer cup from the nearest table. Louis nods in thanks and contemplates the question. To be honest, this wasn’t what he was expecting, and in hindsight this is kinda boring. He’d have preferred hard alcohol and drugs, people to grind on, something to take him out of his head, his liver be damned. It doesn’t seem polite to do it in someone’s house, though, let alone someone he doesn’t know. He probably shouldn’t say all of this, because he supposes it might make him sound like a whiny wanker, but hey, Harry looks like he’s into hard partying so Louis supposes it can’t be all that bad. Maybe Harry will sympathize with him and invite him to a club. Harry probably has lots of tattoos and wears lip rings and listens to punk music and goes to clubs that play music so loud that you can’t hear yourself thinking.

So, Louis starts ranting. He doesn’t do anything half-arsed, mind you, so he enthusiastically describes how boring this place is - from the plants in the entrance to the colour of the walls - coupled with hand gestures. He rants about how the owner probably is a yoga-loving hipster who takes stupid black and white pictures for their aesthetic and who probably listens to Neutral Milk Hotel and ABBA and Fleetwood Mac and Dave Matthews Band and all the clichéd shit. How they have shitty taste, _like who listens to DMB anymore, like bloody wankers, the lot of them._ He rants about how stupid the sofas are, like why white flowers over a red background, _it looks like a bloody red velvet cake, and I’m hungry as shit, lad, I haven’t seen anything other than those bloody cupcakes since I walked in, how fucking rude._ He doesn’t like the “do not smoke marijuana” framed picture, like what a waste of money, honestly, nor the “wake up, be kind, be yourself” poster with the pink background, so he says that. Honesty is the best policy, you know. “What is this, a teenage girl’s inspo Tumblr?” He scoffs. He talks about how him and Aiden used to visit concerts all the time, and then go to clubs directly after and get so smashed that they couldn’t walk straight. He realises it doesn’t actually hurt him to talk about Aiden, so he supposes that’s a good thing. Huh. There’s still the nagging hurt at the back of his mind, but it doesn’t consume his entire soul like it used to, disabling him from thinking about anything else. After a point he starts talking about Aiden, and how they met, and why they broke up, and how Louis has been dealing with it. He doesn’t know when this became a therapy session, but Harry doesn’t seem to mind, barely speaks throughout the rant, keeps smirking, only asking Louis if he’s fine occasionally. Eventually Louis gets back to the original topic, how boring this “get-together” is and how he’d have liked to get proper drunk instead of this _stupid kindergarten tea party with flower boys, like come on, ya kno wha ah mean?_

By the time Louis is done ranting to his heart’s extent, he feels an awkward silence settle over them. His mouth kinda hurts. Harry can’t stop smirking and that smirk is gonna be the death of Louis, no joke. He suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he takes a sip from his drink. Harry is just standing there, watching, green eyes boring into his soul, like he’s analyzing Louis. Louis feels self-conscious suddenly, about his messy fringe and the circles under his eyes, the frayed collar of his shirt and his dirty boots. He hopes Harry doesn’t regret coming here to talk to him, only to be met with an arsenal of complaints.

Oh, what is he talking about? Of course Harry regrets this, who wouldn’t. If it was Louis in his place he’d be very annoyed right now, would have probably labelled the person as pessimistic or a spoilsport. Maybe would have slashed their tyres for spoiling his evening. He doesn’t think Harry’d do that, though, because if Harry is patient enough to listen to Louis whine - something even Zayn doesn’t have the patience for, despite knowing him for three years - then Harry is too sweet to slash someone’s tyres, and definitely too sweet for this world.

Louis isn’t given a chance to ponder on it more, because at that moment Zayn comes prancing, prancing, with a fond Liam by his side, and what the fuck honestly, Louis has hardly seen Zayn like this, they are disgusting. “‘m so sorry I ghosted on you, Lou, I wanted to see Li,” Zayn slurs, letting go of Liam and surging forward to hug Louis, and seriously what the fuck, Louis is getting scared now. 

“No shit, Sherlock,” Louis breathes, struggling to hold Zayn. He seems tipsy, great, just bloody great. Ugh. Louis needs to move to the Himalayas and meditate forever. “Why are you acting like this? Shit, is Aiden here?” Louis’ heart skips a beat at the possibility. _Not here, not now, please, I’ll punch him_. 

Zayn shakes his head from where its spot at Louis’ neck. He looks up, brown eyes hazy, frowning. “Don’t mention him, Lou,” Zayn mutters. “I’d punch him if he was here, no joke.” Louis relaxes, chuckling slightly at how in-sync their thoughts are. He admires Zayn being there for him, even though he’ll never say it out loud.

Zayn apparently does not admire Louis as much, though, because he lets go of Louis and stumbles into Harry. “Hazza! How you doing?” Harry doesn’t seem to mind at all, seriously what is this guy. He holds onto Zayn, laughing. “I’m good, I was talking to your friend over here,” he says, gesturing to Louis, who blushes. The way he enunciates each word is so addictive. “Hier” instead of here, “Loo-eh” instead of Louis, “tohking” instead of talking. Louis could listen to him talk all day. But that would be a little creepy. Whatever. _Harry’d probably say whatever like “woteva_ ”, Louis thinks, and the thought makes him smile. 

“Oh, you two’ve met then? That’s great!” Zayn cheers. He looks overjoyed at the thought. If Louis didn’t know Zayn he’d imagine Zayn was trying to set them up, but he hopes he wouldn’t be that cruel. Besides Harry’s way too pretty to be a rebound and just a rebound. If Louis was in a better place of mind he’d have asked him out, but that wouldn’t be fair to either of them.

“Lou,” Zayn says again, and _oh right,_ there are other people here. “This is Harreh, the host of the party.” 

Louis nods because he already knows Harry, the- the- WHAT? The- _fuck._ Louis freezes.

_Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckmylifefuckeveryoneelsejesuschrist._

Louis can feel himself flush from head to toe but that isn’t what he’s worried about. _Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkk. Fuck. FUCK._

“I-I- Fuck, Harry, I- I genuinely, genuinely didn’t know, I promise, I didn’t mean any of that- fuck, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, your house is- is amazing- fuck- I-” Louis knows he’s rambling but he doesn’t care, when he could potentially have hurt and insulted Harry so much. He knows he must look like a tomato right now, but Harry’s still watching him with a slight smirk on his face and Zayn’s still slurring, but all Louis cares about is Harry.

“I really am sorry,” he tries again weakly.

Zayn chooses that moment to throw up. They have to go home. 

Louis doesn’t sleep all night.

****

It’s been four days since The Party Disaster, as Louis likes to call it, and he hasn’t slept properly in that while. He doesn’t even know why he’s so bothered about insulting a house belonging to someone he doesn’t even know, but he feels like shit for hurting Harry’s feelings. Now that he looks back on it, it probably wasn’t okay for him to speak that way about anyone’s house, no matter if he knew the person or not. He doesn’t have anything to do with how people paint their walls or what plants they keep, and it’s fucking time he realises that. 

On the good side, Aiden hasn’t sent any bullshit text in a while. He’s fairly sure he’s moving on, because he hasn’t cried in a while, which is a big plus for him these days. 

Zayn makes up for being just as annoying though.

Ever since Louis told him about The Disaster, Zayn has found it hilarious. He keeps bursting into laughter at random intervals. According to Liam, Harry had been slightly hurt but otherwise normal. Louis doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Whatcha thinking about?” 

“Huh?” Louis snaps his neck to look at Zayn, who’s sitting beside him on the couch. It’s roughly around 4 pm but you wouldn’t know it because of the curtains pulled. They’ve been sitting there since morning, watching whatever comes on TV. Currently, Gordon Ramsay is screaming at someone for adding the wrong sauce. Louis doesn’t care.

“Brooo,” Zayn whines, poking him in the stomach. Louis nods absently, looking at the TV. 

“Okay, that’s fucking it,” scoffs Zayn. He switches off the TV and turns to look at Louis, who’s now frowning. 

“What?” 

“Listen, bro, you’ve gotta get outta your funk. It was just a stupid comment about his stupid house. I mean, I don’t think it’s stupid, it’s actually really cute, but you can’t be so hard on yourself.”

Louis sighs. That’s not the point. The point is that he’d tried to fake interest - or in this case disinterest - in something he genuinely liked, just because he wanted the person to like him. Which is exactly what had happened with Aiden. Which reminds Louis of how his dreams were never encouraged by Aiden, but he always expected Louis to take out time for him. Now that Louis looks back, maybe it’s better that they broke up after all. There are a lot of red flags he hadn’t seen.

“Okay, you know what? We’re out of milk. And grapes. And bananas. Get that shit from Tesco. I’m not seeing you coped up in this house one more day.”

****

Louis is debating over whether he should pick the longer bananas or the green ones when he hears a crashing noise behind him. He can see only baked beans because of the shelves, but he moves toward the sound. When he reaches the next row of shelves, he sees a person on the ground, except he can’t really see them because they’re covered in what looks like …. milk?

The person whimpers and curses and- fuck. Louis would know that voice anywhere. It’s been haunting his head for days. He should run, fuck he should get out of here, but he takes this as the universe’s sign to give him an opportunity to fix things. He takes a deep breath and goes for it.

“Harry?”

Honestly saying a simple name should not be so nerve-wracking, what the fuck.

He sees a mop of curly hair peek out from under the white mess.

“Oh, Louis. Hi.”

Louis doesn’t know what to make of that tone, and he’s glad he can’t. He’d probably shit himself thinking about it.

“Are you… alright?” He grimaces as soon as the words are out of his mouth, because what the fuck Louis, of fucking course he’s not alright, he’s covered in milk at Tesco, help him out wanker.

“Wait, I’ll get you out. Hold on to my arm here.”

****

“Soooo…. that wasn’t how I expected this visit to go,” Harry chuckles, staring up at the sun. Louis can’t see his eyes because of his sunglasses and he’s glad he can’t, because he’d probably say something like how they’re green like a frog or how he wants to become a frog or something equally stupid. He wants a chance to fix things first. Here we go, I guess.

“Harry,” he starts, and fuck, he’s already clutching the metal on the bench they’re sitting on. After they got Harry cleaned up they decided to talk here instead of a supermarket where potatoes and Coca Cola would judge Louis. Alright, yeah, he’s dramatic, whatever. 

Harry looks at him and finally takes off his sunglasses. He raises his eyebrows expectantly, and goddamn, why does he have to be so intimidating? Not fair. Another deep breath.

“Listen, first of all, I’m really sorry.” There you go, that wasn’t so bad, was it? “I genuinely didn’t mean any of the bulkshit I blurted that night. I only wanted you to like me. I didn’t even know that house was yours! Your house is actually really cute and cozy. I was just so out of it and I took it out on you, so I’m sorry for that too. Which is not a valid excuse but the only one I have, so. I just- I’m sorry,” he finishes lamely. Harry is still staring at him, and fuck is he Dumbledore or something? Louis hates it.

“Apology accepted,” Harry says finally. He’s smirking again and _jesus christ can he stop doing that?_

“I haven’t slept in four days, just so you know. I was so worried you’d hate me,” Louis chuckles, back to his old tactic of trying to use humour in difficult situations. Harry cracks a smile too, looking at his feet. There’s the dimple again.

“It was actually kinda funny, you know.” Louis blinks, can’t believe what he’s hearing. “I don’t hate you. I could never. I’ve heard a lot about you, a lot of good shit, from both Zayn and Liam and I kind of figured you were lying.” Louis nods, biting his lip. Should he do it? 

“I want to make it up to you, so if you want we could- we could get dinner sometime?” Louis blurts out and regrets it immediately. He can feel himself turning red again and _fuck, can I have one conversation without making a fool of myself?_

“If you want, I mean, don’t feel obligated in any way, I just felt horrible and- and wanted to make it up, but it’s totally fine if you don’t want to- obviously, it probably wasn’t even a big deal, if you want-” Louis hurries to fix it before he can mess it up even more, but he’s not entirely sure he succeeds. He’s aware he’s rambling, but hey.

“Like a date?” Harry’s brows are furrowed in confusion, and Louis wants to kiss them, and no. Just no.

“I mean- if you want to, obviously. You don’t need to feel obliged or anything, obviously. This is up to you, obviously.” Louis is mentally jumping off a cliff. 

Harry finally breaks into a full smile, a smile so wide it covers his entire face and Louis stops mid-whatever-weird-gestures-he’s-doing-with-his-hands. Harry’s smile is beautiful, he thinks. Harry is beautiful.

“I’d love that.”

****

Now that Louis looks back on it, he doesn’t suppose it had been such a big deal. But hey, his conscience would’ve eaten him up. Maybe it wasn’t so smart that they started dating within like two weeks of their first date, but Louis has never seen Harry as a rebound. 

Even though he’ll never admit it, he’s grateful for Liam and Zayn. And for Aiden too, maybe. If he hadn’t put his dick in the world and its mother’s arse, Louis wouldn’t have met his husband of three years now.

Yeah. Every time Louis thinks about it, remembers that Harry is his, his husband, he can’t stop grinning like a maniac, even though he’s had years to get used to that fact. He can’t believe he’s been lucky enough to meet Harry, insult his house and eventually marry him. Karma, or whatever.

Of course they fight, all couples do, but they know they’re got each other’s backs. Harry isn’t like Aiden at all; he respects Louis, he supports Louis, he encourages even the tiniest goal Louis wants to achieve, and Louis doesn’t think he’s ever loved anyone so much. 

“Babe, what are you thinking about?” Harry asks absently, solving this week’s puzzle in the newspaper.

“You. And your stupid hipster house.”

“Oh, fuck off. You love it,” Harry grins.

“You love me,” Louis grins back.

“Unfortunately, yeah.”

Life is good. 

  
  



End file.
